A tech came in and went to work on the aluminum case.
“Come on,” Dino said to Stone, “I’ll buy you some lunch.”
Stone stood up. “I’ll watch you eat,” he said.
47
Stone sat at a table in the back room of P. J. Clarke’s and watched Dino devour a steak. His own lunch was a single beer, which he sipped occasionally. “I don’t know how you can eat that,” he said.
Dino carved a chunk off the steak and stuffed it in his mouth. “Why? It’s a decent piece of meat. Not as good as the strip steak they used to serve, though; I don’t know why they took that off the menu.”
“I’m not talking about the quality of the steak.”
“Oh, come on, Stone. You and I have attended a passel of corpses and autopsies over the years; what’s the big deal with a head in a box?”
“I knew her, that’s the big deal. You knew her, too.”
“You’re like most people, I guess: You confuse the remains with the person. A corpse-or part of a corpse-is a shell, a husk that once contained a human being. It deserves respect but not sentimentality.”
“You’re getting awfully philosophical in your old age,” Stone said.
“That’s always been my philosophy. Haven’t we talked about this before?”
“No.”
“I’m sorry it took so long; you need this information.”
“Now that I have it I don’t feel any better.”
“That’s because you haven’t eaten anything. Have a bacon cheeseburger; that always improves your morale.” Dino waved at a waiter. “Bring my friend a bacon cheeseburger, medium, and tell the chef if it arrives well done I’ll take it back there and make him eat it; I don’t care about his product liability policy.” The waiter left. “Have you noticed that you can’t get a burger anything but well done these days? It’s not like Clarke’s ever gave anybody food poisoning. Drives me nuts.” He waved at the waiter again. “Bring him some fries, too; he needs the grease.”
“I had a thought,” Stone said.
“Well, that’s an improvement.”
“I thought I might go and see Eduardo.” Eduardo Bianco was Dino’s former father-in-law, before his divorce from Eduardo’s daughter, Mary Ann. Although a distinguished elder statesman of the city, he retained discreet connections to his Mafia past.
“Why? You want somebody capped?” Dino chuckled.
Stone said nothing.
Dino looked more serious. “Oh, I get it: You want to get Eduardo to get somebody to get somebody else to knock off Devlin Daltry, right?”
“It crossed my mind.”
“Would that solve all your problems?”
“Pretty much.”
“That would never work, Stone.”
“Why not?”
“Because you have a conscience, and you take lawyering seriously. You believe in the system, and you won’t violate that.”
“I’ve violated it before; so have you.”
“My ethical system is based on something older than the law,” Dino said, “and besides, maybe I’ve done some things, but all you did was watch and keep your mouth shut.”